There is considerable interest in measuring small geometrical structures formed on semiconductor wafers. These structures correspond to physical features of the device including conductive lines, holes, vias and trenches as well as alignment or overlay registration markings. These features are typically too small to be measured with conventional optical microscopes. Accordingly, optical scatterometry techniques have been developed to address this need.
In a conventional optical scatterometry system, a light beam is directed to reflect off a periodic structure. The periodic structure acts as an optical grating, scattering some of the light. The light reflected from the sample is then measured. Some systems measure light diffracted into one or more higher orders. Other systems measure only the specularly reflected light and then deduce the amount of light scattered into higher orders. In any event, the measurements are analyzed using scattering theory, for example, a Rigorous Coupled Wave Analysis, to determine the geometry of the periodic structure.
Rigorous Coupled Wave Theory and other similar techniques rely upon the assumption that the structure which is being inspected is essentially periodic. To match theory to experiment, the diameter of the light beam spot on the sample is typically significantly larger than individual features on the test structure and encompasses many cycles of the grating. Most prior art systems operate wherein the probe light beam spot overlaps at least twenty repeating patterns so that the diffraction analysis will have statistical significance. The results of the analysis represent an average of the geometry illuminated by the probe beam.
In real world semiconductor devices, many features are isolated or aperiodic. These isolated structures cannot not evaluated with the grating analysis approaches described above. Accordingly, in order to monitor the geometry of isolated features within the dies on the wafer, manufacturers build test structures on the “streets” of “scribe lines” separating the dies. These test structures are periodic but are intended to have the same geometry (e.g. width, shape) as individual features within the die. By measuring the shape of the test structures, one can gain information about the structure in the dies or overlay registration.
This latter approach has been finding acceptance in the industry. Examples of prior art systems which rely on scatterometry techniques can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,867,276; 5,963,329; and 5,739,909. These patents describe using both spectrophotometry and spectroscopic ellipsometry to analyze periodic structures and are incorporated herein by reference. See also PCT publication WO 02/065545, incorporated herein by reference which describes using scatterometry techniques to perform overlay metrology.
In addition to multiple wavelength measurements, multiple angle measurements have also been disclosed. In such systems, both the detector and sample are rotated in order to obtain measurements at both multiple angles of incidence and multiple angles of reflection. (See, U.S. Pat. No. 4,710,642)
About fifteen years ago, the assignee herein developed and commercialized a multiple angle of incidence measurement system which did not require tilting the sample or moving the optics. This system is now conventionally known as Beam Profile Reflectometry® (BPR®). This and related systems are described in the following U.S. Pat. Nos.: 4,999,014; 5,042,951; 5,181,080; 5,412,473 and 5,596,411, all incorporated herein by reference. The assignee manufactures a commercial device, the Opti-Probe which takes advantage of some of these simultaneous, multiple angle of incidence systems. A summary of all of the metrology devices found in the Opti-Probe can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 6,278,519, incorporated herein by reference.
In the BPR tool, a probe beam from a laser is focused with a strong lens so that the rays within the probe beam strike the sample at multiple angles of incidence. The reflected beam is directed to an array photodetector. The intensity of the reflected beam as a function of radial position within the beam is measured. Each detector element captures not only the specularly reflected light but also the light that has been scattered into that detection angle from all of the incident angles. Thus, the radial positions of the rays in the beam illuminating the detector correspond to different angles of incidence on the sample plus the integrated scattering from all of the angles of incidence contained in the incident beam. The portion of the detector signal related to the specularly reflected light carries information highly influenced by the compositional characteristics of the sample. The portion of the detector signal related to the scattered light carries information influenced more by the physical geometry of the surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,042,951 describes an ellipsometric version of the BPR, which, in this disclosure will be referred to as Beam Profile Ellipsometry (BPE). The arrangement of the BPE tool is similar to that described for the BPR tool except that additional polarizers and/or analyzers are provided. In this arrangement, the change in polarization state of the various rays within the probe beam are monitored as a function of angle of incidence. Both the BPR and BPE tools were originally developed for thin film analysis. One advantage of these tools for thin film analysis is that the laser beam could be focused to a small spot size on the sample. In particular, the lens can produce a spot of less than five microns in diameter and preferably on the order of 1 to 2 microns in diameter. This small spot size permitted measurements in very small regions on the semiconductor.
This clear benefit in the thin film measurement field was seen as a detriment in the field of measuring and analyzing gratings with a scatterometry approach. More specifically, a spot size on the order of 1 to 2 microns encompasses less than twenty repeating lines of a conventional test grating. It was believed that such a small sampling of the structure would lead to inaccurate results.
One approach for dealing with this problem was described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,889,593 incorporated herein by reference. This patent describes adding an optical imaging array to the BPR optics which functions to break the coherent light into spatially incoherent light bundles. This forced incoherence produces a much larger spot size, on the order of ten microns in diameter. At this spot size, a suitable number of repeating features will be measured to allow analysis according to a grating theory.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,429,943 (incorporated by reference), the inventors herein disclosed some alternate approaches for adapting BPR and BPE to measuring periodic gratings. In one approach, the laser probe beam is scanned with respect to the repeating structure to collect sufficient information to analyze the structure as a grating. In another approach, an incoherent light source is used as the probe beam. The incoherent source creates a spot size significantly larger than the laser source and thus could be used to analyze gratings.
Semiconductor manufacturers continually strive to reduce the size of features on a wafer. This size reduction also applies to the width of the streets, typically used as the location for the test structures including overlay registration markings. With narrower streets, the size of the test structures need to be reduced. Ideally, test structures could be developed that were not periodic gratings but closer in form to the actual isolated or aperiodic structures on the dies. Even more desirable would be to develop an approach which would permit measurement of the actual structures within the dies.
With today's small feature sizes, it has been generally believed that direct accurate measurements of isolated or substantially aperiodic structures could not be performed. An isolated structure would correspond to, for example, a single line, trench, hole or via or a specific alignment mark. Such a structure can have extremely small dimensions (i.e., a single line can have a width of about a tenth of a micron).
In order to optically inspect such small structures, a very small illumination spot is desirable. In the broadband applications such as those discussed above, the probe beam spot size is relatively large, on the order of 50 microns in diameter. If this probe beam was focused on an isolated structure, the portion of the measured signal attributable to the isolated structure would be extremely small. Although the spot size of a laser beam is much smaller, it was not envisioned that a enough of a signal could be obtained to measure an isolated feature. Nonetheless, in initial experiments, it has been shown that BPR and BPE techniques using a laser as a probe source can generate meaningful data for isolated structures.
The subject invention also relates to overlay metrology. Overlay metrology is the art of checking the quality of alignment after lithography. Overlay error is defined as the offset between two patterned layers from their ideal relative position. Overlay error is a vector quantity with two components in the plane of the wafer. Perfect overlay and zero overlay error are used synonymously. Depending on the context, overlay error may signify one of the components or the magnitude of the vector.
Overlay metrology provides the information that is necessary to correct the alignment of the stepper-scanner and thereby minimize overlay error on subsequent wafers. Moreover, overlay errors detected on a given wafer after exposing and developing the photoresist can be corrected by removing the photoresist and repeating the lithography step on a corrected stepper-scanner. If the measured error is minor, parameters for subsequent steps of the lithography process could be adjusted based on the overlay metrology to avoid excursions.